Ian cleared his throat. “No problem, Doc. Go ahead.”
Dr. Singh held her pen and sat up straighter. “I’m just going to start by asking a few questions about the two of you, like what do you do? How long have you been married? That sort of thing.”
“Will that help you determine how many sessions we’re going to need?”
“I don’t determine that based on the first session. That’s going to take some time to figure out, and as for how often, it’ll also depend on the kind of information you give me today.”
Ian nodded. “Okay, fair enough.”
“Mr. Railings—”
“Ian,” he interrupted with a polite smile. “Mr. Railings makes me feel old. It’s just Ian.”
Dr. Singh scribbled something down. “Okay, Ian. How old are you?”
“I’m forty-four,” Ian replied, pausing to link his fingers together. “I’m a cop.”
“How long have you been a cop?”
“Fifteen years. I went to college for a couple of years, then the academy, and here I am.”
Dr. Singh didn’t look up at him. “And what made you want to become a cop?”
“My dad was a cop for a while. He retired early, though, and decided to go into teaching, but he quit a few years back.”
“And your mom?”
“She died when I was just a toddler. It was a robbery gone wrong.”
Dr. Singh looked up at him and gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Dr. Singh straightened her back and looked at him directly, her brown eyes wide and unflinching behind her spectacles. “In your own words, why are you here, Ian?”
Ian coughed. “I’m here because I feel like Lucy and I haven’t been on the same page lately, and I want us to be. I don’t know what went wrong or what I can do to fix it, but I want to try.”
Lucy snorted. “Yeah, right.”
Dr. Singh turned her attention to Lucy, who still wouldn’t look up from her phone. “Was there something you wanted to share, Mrs. Railings?”
“It’s Lucy,” she grumbled before sinking lower in her seat. “And no, I have nothing to say.”
“Lucy’s parents are both alive and well, and she’s a wedding planner. She’s forty-two, and she’s working on this secret wedding she won’t tell me anything about.”
Lucy paused to give him a withering look.
“You shouldn’t speak for Lucy, Ian,” Dr. Singh told him, pausing to lean back in her chair. “Why don’t we wait until you’re both comfortable?”
In the background, the clock on the cream-colored wall ticked.
Ian’s gaze darted around the room, taking in the mahogany desk, the shelves with books on either side of the room, and the large window allowing tiny particles of light to dance on the floorboards beneath their feet. Dr. Singh continued to sit in her armchair opposite the couch, facing them, a serene expression on her face.
It was the longest hour of Ian’s life.
By the end of it, Dr. Singh stood up and assigned them both homework.
Then Ian and Lucy stepped outside the brick building and into the early afternoon light. She was on her phone the entire ride home. As soon as they got home, she changed into a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers. Lucy barely acknowledged him on her way out, leaving Ian to his own devices. Not wanting to spend his day off alone at home, he went back into the car and drove over to Sophia’s.
